Google to shut down Orkut social network by September 30

Google Inc. – Search giant Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) has finally decided to shut down Orkut, a first of its kind social networking website created and run by Google as an initial attempt at building a social network. Orkut service will be officially terminated on September 30, after which users will not be able to log in or export their photos to their Google+ profile.

Google’s Engineering Director, Paulo Golgher made an announcement via a blog post. Ten years ago, Orkut was kick-started by Google as a first step into the social networking era.

Over the past decade, we noticed search giant Google consistently coming up with some of the major and popular services as YouTube, Blogger and Google+. As Orkut failed to stand out in the web space compared to these services, Google had no choice left than shutting it down.

“We will shut down Orkut on September 30, 2014. Until then, there will be no impact on current Orkut users, to give the community time to manage the transition. People can export their profile data, community posts and photos using Google Takeout. Starting today, it will not be possible to create a new Orkut account,” said Paulo Golgher, Engineering Director.

“It’s been a great 10 years, and we apologize to those still actively using the service. We hope people will find other online communities to spark more conversations and build even more connections for the next decade and beyond,” – he added further.

The social networking website was initially started on January 24, 2014, and it was named after its creator, Orkut Büyükkökten. Orkut was one of the most visited websites in India and Brazil. Its mobile applications will also be taken down from Google and the App Store shortly.